


let it be undone

by pathera



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Bad Decisions, Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Character Death, Everyone is Dead, Gen, Guilt, M/M, Survivor Guilt, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27719323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pathera/pseuds/pathera
Summary: “You owe me,” Caleb says, when Essek opens the door.It has been ten days since he teleported Caleb out of a battle that could not be won, ten days since Caleb wrenched out of his grasp and collapsed to the ground, ten days since Caleb drew sigils in the air with bloodstained fingers and disappeared.Caleb loses everything, and is bound and determined to undo it, no matter what the cost may be. Essek helps.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss & Caleb Widogast, Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 18
Kudos: 105





	let it be undone

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all, I'm so sorry in advance, I just have this instinct to hurt the characters I love the most. I told myself I wasn't going to write Critical Role fics and then Caleb kissed Essek on the forehead and I lost my soul to it. 
> 
> Warnings for major character deaths that happen mostly offscreen. Also for general angst, guilt, light descriptions of gore, general bad decisions, and an ambiguous ending. Less serious warnings for run-on sentences and grammar abuse. 
> 
> This is set somewhere in the nebulous future, and I'm playing fast and loose with magic because I can. 
> 
> Theoretically, there could be a sequel to this one day, but for now I'm going to let it live as is.

“You owe me,” Caleb says, when Essek opens the door. He is gaunt, his skin sallow and his eyes bloodshot and there is a thick scruff of beard that does nothing to hide how hollowed his cheeks are. His hand is still raised from pounding on the door and it trembles in the air.

There is dried blood high on the collar of his shirt and Essek wonders who it belongs to. There is black under the crescents of his nails, and Essek wonders if it is dirt, ash, or both. He wonders if those hands were busy digging graves or digging them up.

It has been ten days since he teleported Caleb out of a battle that could not be won, ten days since Caleb wrenched out of his grasp and collapsed to the ground, heaving and gasping and howling, ten days since Caleb drew sigils in the air with bloodstained fingers and disappeared.

“You owe me,” Caleb repeats. His voice is ragged—is it from screaming or disuse?

“When is the last time you ate?” Essek asks, and the question surprises both of them. He thought it, because Caleb has always been lean but now he is skeletal, but he didn’t mean to say it. Caleb blinks at him, confused and so soft for a moment, and then his expression shutters closed the same way doors slam shut. Essek’s heart skips a beat and his stomach churns.

“You owe me, Essek,” Caleb says again, his voice stronger, bitten by frost. “You left them and now you fucking owe me.”

 _Have you slept at all?_ Essek does not say. He does not say _they were already gone._ He does not say _I’m not sorry for saving you, I won’t be sorry for that._ He does not say _I scried and I searched and I could not find you, where were you?_ He does not say _I thought you were dead._

“I pay my debts,” he does say. “Whatever you ask, it’s yours.”

Caleb breathes in and it shakes through his body, as if it is the first breath he has taken in ten long days. He sways on his feet, and Essek fists his hands in his clothing to keep from reaching out. “Time,” he says. “I need time.”

Essek looks at him, and in the grand scheme of time it is just a moment, not brief, not stretched, just a simple moment in the universe. He steps back, and Caleb staggers his way in, and later Essek will know that this is the moment the end began.

+

_ten days ago_

Essek is not a warrior, never has been, never will be. The teleportation spell brings him into the middle of a battle, a pace from Caleb, who has blood streaming down his face, some from his nostrils, some from a wound open and pouring on his scalp. There is fire in Caleb’s hands, there is smoke thick in the air, someone is screaming as flames crackle over their body, consuming, and Caleb’s eyes are glassy and feverish as he watches them burn.

Essek has fought before, of course he has, but he avoids it as much as possible. He’s not built for it; he is clever and quick and powerful, and all of that means nothing when a blade is sinking through your skin, when someone’s hands are around your throat, when someone on the other side has magic too and their spells strike true. Battle makes his head spin, too much clamor, too much to take in and keep track of, too much noise and blood and chaos.

In the chaos, he takes a breath, and he makes himself look.

_armored men, their hands full of nasty weapons that have tasted blood already today, are moving towards Caleb. they move like a pack of wolves, circling and snapping and waiting for that flash of inevitable vulnerability, and no matter how much fire Caleb has it will not be enough_

_when they see Essek, they split, they move towards him, and he knows that he has seconds, seconds to make a decision_

_the ground is muddy, trampled by too many feet, imprinted with last stands_

_he sees colors, knows what they mean, and it is better to just see the color, he doesn’t want to see the rest, he doesn’t—here is blue like a sapphire returned to the earth it came from; here is green, outstretched and reaching for the blue, fallen just short; here is pink, soft and pale against the mud, like a flower crushed; here is a bright curl of yellow sprawled at Caleb’s feet; here is another strike of blue, muted with gray, and here is white, white feathers shrouding that blue, torn and scattered_

_and here, everywhere, is red, on the ground and soaking through cloth, red on white feathers and gray fabric and blue skin and green hands and yellow dresses and pink hair, red in Caleb’s hands in his hair on his face in his mouth_

_(it’s too late, I was too late)_

Essek takes one step, two, three. Puts his hand on Caleb’s shoulder and isn’t afraid of the flames, is more afraid of the way Caleb looks through him. Essek’s feet touch the muddy ground; for this, he needs everything he has. One second, two, three, and he is drawing sigils in the air and men are moving towards them, flames are licking up Caleb’s arms and they are a moment away from destruction.

And then…then they are just gone.

+

“Caleb,” Essek says. He is trying for gentle, isn’t sure he makes it. He’s not sure he knew what gentle was until a pink-haired firbolg made him tea, until a blue tiefling held his hand while he confessed to terrible things; he’s even more unsure of how to be gentle in a world without them. “This is madness.”

Caleb’s jaw clenches. He looks more solid now, less the trembling, shattered figure and more the man that Essek recognizes, his hair still wet from a bath, dressed in one of Essek’s simplest outfits that has been magicked to fit. “Is my theory incorrect?”

Essek frowns at the many, many papers and notebooks strewn on the table before him. “No,” he admits.

“Are my calculations wrong?”

Essek sighs. “Not as far as I can tell.”

Caleb nods. “Will it work?”

“The power you would need is far beyond what even the two of us combined can accomplish.”

“I’m not worried about the power,” Caleb says, leaning forward, his eyes glinting. “That is not the question that I asked, Shadowhand.” His tone is cool and formal, and Essek schools his expression.

“Yes,” he says. “To what degree, and with what consequences, I cannot tell you.”

“Good,” Caleb says. There is silence for a moment, weighted, as Essek shifts papers and waits. “This is not madness,” Caleb says into that stretched silence. His voice is not soft, not warm, but it is, abruptly and without a definable measure of its change, the voice of his friend. Essek is let back into his world, not shut out in the cold and dark. “I know madness. We are old companions. This is not that.”

Essek studies him. Caleb’s head is bent over one of his notebooks, his eyes scanning across the page and never flickering up. “Madness has many faces,” Essek says carefully.

Caleb’s teeth bare in a grim smile. “Genius does as well. They have often been confused.”

Essek leans forward. “Is this an act of genius, then?”

Caleb’s eyes lift over the notebook, meeting his squarely. “This,” he says carefully, “is an act of love.”

+

Essek is… _skeptical_ of Caleb’s plan to acquire the power they need for the spell. They are at the edge of the Lotusden Greenwood, the trees tall and eerie. Caleb had said _“doesn’t matter where—just outside and away from anyone who might be listening”_ and when Essek crafted the spell this is where is mind wandered. It isn’t the exact spot he once brought the Mighty Nein to, but it is close enough that he can imagine their voices echoing through the trees.

Caleb tils his head to the sky. “Traveler!” he calls. “I need your help!” He waits a moment, then adds, “if you loved Jester, you will answer me.”

There is silence. Essek watches Caleb, the way he stands with his head high and his back straight and his hands clenched at his side, ready to fight the world, ready to tear it all asunder, waiting for something impossible and improbable. The world is not kind, it does not just bend no matter how strong your will, and Essek does not believe that anyone will answer.

He’s wrong. 

“What do you want?” a voice asks, low and tired and rough.

Essek blinks. There is a man sitting on a log to their right. His hair is a tangle of vivid red against a dull green cloak, his features sharp and fine and fey, and his posture is one of defeat, bent forward to rest his elbows on his knees, shoulders slumped, hands hanging limply. Essek raises an eyebrow at Caleb— _this is your miracle?—_ and Caleb ignores him.

“I need your help,” Caleb says.

The Traveler waves a dismissive hand. “With what, Caleb Widowgast? I’m no help to anyone. Clearly.”

Caleb glares at him. “Jester would be so disappointed in you,” he says, goading, and the Traveler just sighs.

“Jester is dead,” he says flatly. “I failed her and she died.” He raises a hand and it sparks with green light. “All this power,” he says, his voice faint, “but even I cannot just undo death.”

“Jester did it,” Caleb says. “She brought people back, with _your_ power.”

“She did,” the Traveler agrees. “But there are rules and I—I am not a god,” he says. “If I had the power to just bring someone back so easily, the gods would have caged me long ago.” His head tips to the side. “Technically speaking they _did_ cage me, but not for that reason.” He sighs heavily. “What do you want, Widowgast?” His nose scrunches. “You don’t mean to meddle in necromancy, do you? I hate necromancy, it’s always so messy, too many body parts and they get squishy after a while. Honestly, Jester would never forgive us for it either.”

“I’m going to undo it,” Caleb says, and for the first time the Traveler looks interested instead of defeated. “All of it.”

“Undo,” the Traveler says slowly, drawing the word out. “Interesting choice of words.” His eyes flicker over to Essek. “You mean to use dunamancy.”

“I do,” Caleb says. “Time travel. Turn the clock back, make sure it never happens.”

The Traveler sighs. “Better wizards than you have tried and failed. Many times. Most of them end up mad, dead, or lost.”

“I will succeed,” Caleb says. There is no doubt in his voice, just iron will, and Essek feels a chill run down his spine. He’s not sure if it is fear, awe, or something in between. The Traveler looks doubtful still, but his eyes are a brighter green than they were a moment ago, glittering with interest.

“I’ve dabbled in time,” the Traveler says, “but only connected to the Feywild. It’s too… _slippery_ here,” he says with distaste. “I cannot help you with that.”

“I don’t need you to craft the spell. Essek and I have done that. But it requires power, more than I have.” He glances back at Essek. “More than we have combined.”

A thin smile curls across the Traveler’s face. “You need a boost,” he says.

Caleb nods. “If you lend your power behind it, it can be done.”

The Traveler studies Caleb for a long moment. “It may not be what you hope,” he says, almost gentle. “It may not work, and if it does the ramifications and the cost may be…well, astronomical. Reality shattering.” He taps his chin thoughtfully. “For all we know, it could end the world.”

Caleb looks him dead in the eye. “I’m willing to take that chance,” he says, and finally, _finally_ the Traveler grins. He looks, for the first time, like a creature who might have the power they need after all. “Will you help me?”

The Traveler stands. He is tall, looming and imposing for all that he seemed so small a few moments ago. “When you are ready, call for me. I’ll come.” Then he is gone, and Caleb turns towards Essek, victorious and determined.

“How long to gather the supplies?”

“Two days,” Essek answers. Dread is a low hum in his body, one he wasn’t aware of until just now. “Maybe three,” he says, because every day is another chance to pause this terrible unfolding work that he knows cannot be stopped.

“A day to set everything, and a day to check that everything is correct,” Caleb says, decisive. “Five days at most.” He presses his hand to his chest, as if in pain, and Essek can only imagine how badly his heart does hurt. “Five days and it can be undone.”

 _At what cost, at what cost, at what cost,_ Essek thinks, as he takes Caleb’s hand, and they are gone again.

+

“I could stop you,” Essek says. Caleb’s hands slow in their drawing, then stop all together, lifting up from the glyphs they were carefully crafting. Caleb sits back on his heels, looking at him, his expression shuttered.

“You could,” he says simply.

“I _should_ stop you,” Essek says mildly. “This is reckless, Caleb. It’s too fast and we don’t know what it will do.”

“I don’t have centuries,” Caleb says. “I don’t have lifetimes upon lifetimes to dedicate to figuring out if this will work or if it will break the world instead. Every day we delay it gets harder to change, introduces more variables.” He tilts his head. “And every day we wait is another day for our enemies to come and finish the job. This was an assassination, meticulous and planned, and it was not intended to leave survivors.”

Essek’s mouth is dry. “I didn’t know,” he says. Caleb’s eyes narrow, his gaze sharp, and Essek knows he has walked into a web. “I didn’t know until it was too late,” he clarifies. “The minute I did, I came. If I had known earlier, I would have stopped it, warned you, did whatever I could.” He swallows hard. “I would have saved them, if I could.”

“Would you have?” Caleb bites, and then winces, looking away. “Sorry,” he mutters. “That was unkind.”

Essek leans forwards, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. “Caleb,” he says, his voice intent enough that Caleb glances at him. “I would have,” he says, and holds Caleb’s gaze until he gets a jerky nod. He takes a breath. “They would not want you to do this. They would not _let_ you do this.” He is surprised by how sharp the words cut on his tongue, wants to take them back, wants to soothe with his own muttered apology, but he doesn’t. They’re true, he knows they are, he knows that if anyone else were standing here in his place, Caleb would not be walking this path.

Caleb flinches, his hands curling into tight fists, blunt nails cutting crescent marks into his palms. “They don’t want anything,” he says harshly, “nor can they stop me, because they are dead.” He shakes his head. “I have chosen my course of action, Essek.” Slowly his hands uncurl and there is a fey, thin smile on his face. “You know, I was trained to sacrifice everything of myself for a greater purpose. I doubt this is the purpose those who made me intended.” His head lifts and he meets Essek’s gaze again. “If you are going to stop me, you know how. That decision is yours to make.”

Essek is cold. There is a chill in his bones, his marrow, his blood. Caleb’s gaze is challenging, steady, accepting. He does not ask the question but it stretches between them: _are you going to stop me?_

 _Reality shattering,_ the Traveler had said. _For all we know, it could be the end of the world._

 _You owe me,_ Caleb had said, and he hadn’t known just how true it was, still doesn’t know, will never know.

 _This is an act of love,_ Caleb had said, and that, Essek thinks, is the crux of it. Love is a fool’s errand, he has always believed that; what is love next to power? What is love next to knowledge? Foolish, wasteful, vapid, weak, vulnerable, leave it for a fourth life, even a fifth, leave it for centuries down the line when ambition’s hunger is finally sated. It is _still_ a fool’s errand, it is fleeting and painful and the death of rational thought.

Essek bows his head and picks up his work again, inscribing glyphs with precise sharp motions. After a moment, Caleb does the same. 

+

(There are so, so many things that Essek Thelyss has not said in his life. This is one of them:

_in the chaos of battle, he makes himself look_

_there are colors on the ground and he wants them to be colors instead of the bodies of his friends, he wants it to just be sapphire blue on the ground and not Jester with a spear through her chest; it is green, not Fjord with his hand outstretched towards Jester and he will never reach her because there is a hole blasted into the middle of his back; it is pink and not Caduceus with his chest caved in; it is yellow and not Veth sprawled on the ground in front of Caleb with an arrow right through her eye; it is blue-gray and not Beauregard whose face is almost unrecognizable with blood; it is white and not Yasha unmoving with her wings outspread, stretched like a shield over as much of Beau as she could reach_

_he makes a decision, three steps to Caleb, sigils in the air, gone_

_he made himself look and he cannot unsee: the rise and ragged fall of Yasha’s chest, still breathing; Beau’s eyes open in her bloody, mangled face, watching him leave_

Essek knows what Caleb would and would not forgive.)

+

“Are you ready?” Caleb asks.

You cannot tell that there was a battle here, fifteen days ago. Rain has washed the blood from the grass, has smoothed the imprints of bodies from the ground. A tracker could probably tell, but Essek has never been good at reading signs in the earth. He wonders who carried away the bodies, if it was their enemies or if Caleb came back and retrieved them. He hasn’t asked, isn’t sure he wants to know.

They have set the spell circle in the middle of the clearing. The glyphs are in place, neat and meticulous. Essek has buried the impulse to push one of them ever so faintly out of alignment, hiding his hands in his long sleeves instead, and Caleb has paced them over and over again, checking, double checking. Now, they take up their positions on opposite sides of the circle. The question hangs in the air, and Essek feels the weight of Caleb’s eyes.

 _This is an act of love,_ Essek does not say. (There are so, so many things that he has not said in his life; he swallows them down, and some slip away easily but others burn their way into the dark. This is one.)

He nods.

The Traveler flickers into the space beside them, saturated color in the gray light of a clouded day. The air around him crackles, a buzzing build of electricity around all of them.

Essek meets Caleb’s eyes and together, they step forward into the circle.

Caleb holds his head high as he starts the incantation, as he weaves signs that burn into the air. Essek’s eyes are on him, only on him, as he joins in the incantation, as the magic pours of out him, out of them both. The spell takes shape, takes form; it sinks hooks into Essek’s skin, deeper into his soul, and he grits his teeth and does not cry out. Across from him Caleb does the same, his expression wrought with pain, his eyes determined.

_An act of love, an act of love, an act of love_

_(can also be an act of destruction)_

(once, when he was very, very young, Essek stepped out into the sun, and his skin blistered and burnt more for every minute that he stayed, but it was so overwhelmingly beautiful that he stayed and stayed and stayed. it took weeks to heal and he still has scars and he never did it again. by the time he was old enough to withstand sunlight without burning, he was old enough to bury awe and wonder so deep down that it would not trouble him. still, he remembers it, he remembers it

_an act of love an act of destruction)_

Something in the world cracks. Essek can feel it, the way you feel a bone snap, the way you feel your ears pop at great heights, something breaks and he has no idea of what. There is building pressure, a whine in the air, and Essek knows with absolute certainty that they are about to fall. He flings out a hand and finds Caleb already reaching for him. They tether together, hands clasped, holding tight, just a moment before

the world

u

n

r

a

v

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l

s.

**Author's Note:**

> A little extra heartbreak for your consideration: in game terms, Beau had been unconscious, rolled a nat 20 on a death save, and stabilized at one hit point. She was badly hurt and barely awake, but conscious. She would have watched Essek and Caleb disappear. And she would have felt it when Yasha, who was unconscious and on her third death save, took her last breath. 
> 
> I'm so sorry!


End file.
